Off-Limits

One of my friends in New York asked, “You still blogging?”

“Ummm, yeah, hello, everyday.”

“Well it’s not interesting anymore.  You’re getting married.  You talk about your wedding.  Sorry, but I don’t really care to follow that.”  I respected him for being straightforward with me.  Most people don’t tell the honest truth. 

I thought about it and here’s what I told him.  “You’re right.  I can see that.  Readers evolve as a blogger evolves.  I’m sure more single people followed me more in the past than they do now.  And you know what?  More married people follow me now.  So my readership is definitely changing, but it doesn’t get smaller.” 

I know this because of the stats.  At least 100 unique visitors check the site every day. 

Recently, I made the decision to stop blogging about my relationship.  Early on when I started blogging, I thought I could write about anything.  Anything, right?  That’s what makes us writers.  The truth.  Then my employer caught on and any mention of my company became off-limits.  But that was it.  Now, I need to take my relationship offline because apparently it’s the right thing to do.  I don’t altogether agree, but the decision has been made. 

When I started, I didn’t tell anyone I had a blog.  I just wrote pretending it was an online diary.  Then I thought maybe people might enjoy reading what someone had to say about being single in San Francisco.  And they did.  I got messages from readers telling me to keep it up.  They found my writing amusing, interesting, honest.  It made me want to improve my writing, but I wanted to keep relating to my audience.  What makes a story real?

You know what?  It’s the ugly truth.  My friend was right.  I wouldn’t give a damn about someone else’s wedding.  I used to read a blog about someone living the single life in New York City, then deleted the bookmark once she got married.  It went downhill from there.  BORING.  Frankly, I ready very few blogs.  The ones I do read are those of friends.  I wanted to grab hold of my friend like I was losing my very last client, ‘Please don’t stop reading me.  I promise I’ll be good.’  But that’s my loss and maybe a bit of his loss, too.

So even though there are off-limit topics, I am going to really try to be brutally honest and truthful.  That’s what makes writing so damn good.